Until We Close Our Eyes For Good
by Tuesday Too
Summary: Sam has a couple constants in his life. One is depression. Another one is Dean. Pre-series to 12.02


**Author's Note:** _Spoilers up through season 12 episode 2_

 _Written for ohsam's Triple Play over on LJ (which has a wealth of fantastic stories you should check out!). Thanks to center of the galaxy for the awesome prompt: 1) Throughout the years (pre-series to now if you wish or whatever span of time you like) 2) Dean (as his main constant; add other characters as you see fit) 3) Depression_

 _Title from "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant._

* * *

 _[1990]_

"Sam! Time for school!" Dean is shaking him awake, a bright grin plastered across his face.

He rolls over, pulling the floral comforter over his head. "Go away, Dean."

He can picture the grin in Dean's eyes turning to a frown. "What's the matter? You can't miss the first day of school, you nerd."

Sam doesn't budge. "It's not the first day of school," he grumbles. It's the 23rd of October.

"C'mon, Sammy." Dean coaxes, tugging the blanket down from where it's pulled over Sam's face. Dean cracks a hopeful smile. "Don't leave me to be the new kid on my own. Who's gonna eat with me during lunch?"

Sam chews at his lip. The skin's worn out so that it tastes like copper. He stares at Dean's face, so earnest it cracks around the edges. "Yeah, okay," he says finally. He tugs his mouth into an almost smile.

* * *

 _[1998]  
_

"Sam!"

Sam groans into awareness, his leg immediately making him aware that he would've been better off staying checked out.

He starts at the contact against his shoulder. Dean. One hand's gripping his shoulder, the other's cupping his face.

"Sam? You with me?"

He grumbles incoherently in response, forcing heavy eyelids up. Dean's face is hovering above his. He's got a gash across his temple and there's a red trickle down his face. "You okay?" Sam wheezes out.

"Me?" Dean's incredulous, full of teenage swagger. "I'm fine, dude."

His fingers run lightly across the gashes clawed across Sam's thigh. His eyebrows are drawn. "You okay, Sammy?"

Sam's biting his tongue so hard he's tasting blood. "No," he answers. Dean's eyes shoot up to meet his. "What're we doing, Dean?"

"Hunting a kitsune, remember?" Dean's shrugging off his favorite flannel, readying to tie it around Sam's leg.

"I mean, this is going to kill us."

"Shut up, Sam." Dean growls, all concern. "You're gonna be just fine."

Except, Sam thinks, he's not.

* * *

 _[2004]_

 _Dean while sand rains red—_

Sam's head snaps up, jolting him back to awareness. He squints blearily at the law textbook spread out in front of him. He can't stop nodding off.

His dream was fuzzy except he knows there was Dean and blood and it was nonsensical. (Except, their whole lives are nonsensical and Sam's brain can't stop imagining peeling back the sheet to reveal his brother's bloody body.) He stops. His head's too tired to remember that Dean is off limits.

He tries to refocus. He needs to study. He stares at his mug half full of cold coffee, spirals of notes that trail off in squiggles, and… his head bobs. …And his papers and books piled over every spare bit of desk, bills peeking out underneath. All evidence of the state of his sanity.

He checks the time on his phone. _4:21 AM._ Then his finger is thumbing through his contacts, hovering over Dean.

He doesn't remember making the decision to go there. He sets his phone down. He's so tired.

But he has an exam in four hours. He thinks about his new girlfriend Jess, thinks about law school, thinks about the future that might involve a house and kids and not blood and monsters.

 _It's worth it it's worth it it's worth it._

He takes a sip of cold coffee then —

his head jerks. Dean's image is playing at his eyelids.

* * *

 _[2006]  
_

Sam wakes with a shuddering gasp, heart pounding in his chest. His eyes scan the dim room, reorienting himself.

Dean's sitting in the motel bed next to him, still in his jeans on top of the covers. He's side-eyeing Sam warily while the tv plays some old black and white film on mute. "Vision?"

 _Jess burning above him, blood dripping onto his face through hot flames.  
_  
Sam shakes his head. "No, just…" He doesn't need to finish.

He leans wearily back against the headboard. He just wants a break. Some nights it's Jess, some nights it's someone who hasn't quite died yet. Sometimes it's enough to give Sam the stupid hope that he can actually save someone. Really though, everything is just a highlight reel of all Sam's past and soon-to-be failures.

Pick your poison, Sam thinks.

"Wanna watch?" Dean waves the remote at the TV. "Got a couple guys in monkey suits blackmailing each other over some chick's murder."

So he watches black and white figures move across the tv. Dean pretends like he's not watching him. Sam tries not to fall asleep.

* * *

 _[2008]_

It was the heat of the moment.

Sam wakes up, waits for Dean's voice.  
 _  
_"Rise and shine, Sammy!"

Every damn morning. Two steps.

1\. Rise

2\. Shine

He always fails at the second. Some days, he fails both.

(Dean's bloody chest is still fresh in his mind.)

He counts the seconds he gets to lay there in silence. _Three, two, one —_

Dean finishes tying his boots. "What, are you just gonna sleep all day?'"

He's got five seconds until his brother turns concerned.

 _Five, four, three, two_ — Sam levers himself up and pushes himself around so that his feet are on the floor. He can't quite makes himself stand up. His eyes trace the faded wallpaper as Dean disappears into the bathroom. There isn't a way out. Even if he stops the time loop, stops Dean from dying every day, then comes the countdown to hell where Dean dies permanently.

Dean pokes his head out from the bathroom, speaking around half a mouthful of toothpaste. "You alright?"

Sam forgot to count. The words stick in his throat. "Yeah," ekes out. He hears the extended gargle then the _swish spit_ of Dean finishing brushing his teeth. He better get up. Better start pulling on his shirt and brushing his teeth before—

The bed dips down beside him. "Dude, spill. What's wrong?"

He's too tired to brush it off. "You're going to die, Dean."

"We're all gonna die, Sam," Dean quips off-handedly.

"Dean," he insists, agitation creeping in. "You're going to die, and I can't stop it."

"Hey. We'll figure it out," Dean pacifies, full of blind faith. He stands and starts rummaging around in his duffle. "C'mon. We got a case to solve."

Sam knows. He pushes himself out of bed to face another Tuesday.

* * *

 _[2009]_

Sam wakes up before Dean. He gives himself three minutes to trace patterns across the stained motel ceiling. He really doesn't want to get out of bed and face the world he unleashed the devil on.

 _5:24_. Time's up. He rolls his head to look over at Dean.

His brother's face is lined, drawn tight even in sleep and Sam feels the guilt, weighty in his gut. As guilty as he feels about ending the world, nothing hurts quite as much as becoming a monster to his own brother. There's so much to do, so much to make up for, and no matter how hard he works, it will never be enough. It's enough to make him want to curl up and never get out of bed in the morning. But that's selfish and he can't be selfish. Not after everything he's done.

He has to try. For Dean. For everyone. So Sam pushes up out of bed, hand clutching the headboard to pull himself up.

He sits at the table with his laptop and pours over news about the apocalypse, reading about all the blood that's on his head. He's reading about the carnage in a middle school when Dean wakes up, sweaty and shaking from a nightmare. ( _From Hell.)  
_  
Sam can't —

He can't read any harder.

* * *

 _[2010]_

 _Sammy, it's okay. It's okay, I'm here. I'm here. I'm not gonna leave you.  
_  
He comes back to Dean's face, bloodied and smashed by his hands. He felt every hit. He felt the surge of power when he exploded Cas and wrung Bobby's neck. Just a few final failures to add to his list.

When he leans back toward the hole, ready to trap the devil, it doesn't exactly feel like victory. It's just an attempt at penance for a life full of mistakes.

But as he closes his eyes —

Peace.

.

.

.

(Then his eyes reopen.)

* * *

 _[2011]_

"Sam," Dean's shaking him. "We're making a pitstop."

Sam blinks the gas station into focus. He wonders absurdly if he stole cigarettes and beer from this one. He wonders if his soulless self was into smoking and booze, like his body under Meg's control was. He stops. He's not supposed to scratch the wall.

He's just supposed to ignore his past mistakes and sins, all the things he did without his soul.

"Make sure you pee," Dean's saying. "I'm not stopping in two hours for your girly bladder."

"I'm not the one who pulled over," Sam points out.

Dean huffs and mutters something about Baby needing some fuel as he slams the car door shut. Sam guesses turning over and going back to sleep is out. He follows his brother into the gas station.

His chest feels tight as he walks through the junk food aisle, as he feels customer's and clerks' eyes on him. The weight of all the blank spaces in his memory presses in and everyone else _knows_.

Dean interrupts. "Sam, buy me some candy, would you?"

Sam wants to say _I can't_ but it's easier to just nod yes. No voice required.

While he waits to pay for Dean's peanut M&Ms, he reads headlines.  
 _  
LOCAL TEEN FOUND BEHEADED IN FOREST. NO SUSPECTS._

(Blood on his hands and he doesn't know why.)

And he wonders.

* * *

 _[2013]_

"Hey, Sammy."

Sam stirs into awareness at Dean's voice. He's tangled around the sheets of his bed. This is his second nap of the day and he's still exhausted.

"Time for some grub," Dean says, leaning in the doorway to Sam's room. Sam pushes himself up while Dean's gaze roves over the bare walls. "Would it kill you to hang something up in here? I've got some magazines you could borrow."

"And fill my walls with porn?" Sam coughs through a tight chest. "No thanks." He glances at the blank walls. Maybe he should care.

He must wait a bit too long to get up. "C'mon. I made burgers," Dean prompts.

Sam coughs again, this time quickly folding the bloody tissue. Sam doesn't feel like eating, doesn't feel like getting out of bed, doesn't feel like doing anything, and he's tired all the time thanks to the trials, but he but he can't put down Dean's cooking.

"Might even be able to scrounge up some rabbit food for you."

Dean's trying so damn hard. Sam wishes he could too.

* * *

 _[2015]_

 _Sammy, close your eyes._

Sam's on his knees, eyes shut, split skin across his cheek, his brother towering above him, expression hard with the mark of Cain.

He hears the whistle-thump of the sickle swing. Then —

His eyes open. Death crumbles into dust.

Sam stands, watching Dean with wide eyes and a mouthful of blood leftover from his brother's fists.

Dean's okay. The mark is zapped off and Sam's brother is back. Dean's okay.

This is good, he tells his brother.

(If death is gone, how does it end?)

* * *

 _[2016]_

Sam consciousness comes back with the creak of the basement door. It's a better awakening to a bucket of ice water, he guesses, though he feels the sting of all the bloody cuts just the same. He drags his head up wearily. Toni, righteous ambassador from the British Men of Letters, is watching him.

"Screw yourself," he says.

He's so done. He's lost Dean so many times, and this time doesn't hurt any less. His chest is hollow and everything is heavy, like someone switched out his bones for lead. Dean's gone which means Sam is too.

Except. Toni is saying that he and Dean messed up, that they're the monsters. What a load of crap. His brother just sacrificed himself to save the world from destruction. Those self-righteous pricks wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Dean. So Sam sets his jaw.

( _He's never, ever gonna say that Dean — the real Dean — is anything but good.)_

Toni's hands go to grab something outside the doorway and Sam vaguely wonders what new torture she's thought up to try and change his mind.

His brother steps into view, heavy shackles across his wrists, but body whole, eyes appraising the scene.

"Dean." He whispers hoarsely.

He can't quite comprehend and isn't quite sure that this isn't another hallucination. But he does know that if Toni expects this to be how Sam breaks, then she's wrong.

Dean is the only reason Sam's still going.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Thanks for reading! It's been a hot second since I saw some of these seasons, so it was a fun challenge to try and get into Sam's head. Hope ya'll enjoyed!_


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